Mother's Day Weekend

For the past few days I have been putting in a lot of hours in the kitchen. We had a huge Mother's Day Buffet to prepare for. Reservations at a little over 300, with walk ins, we believe we served over 400 guests.

There was a lot to prepare, on top of the usual banquets. I will try and remember the order of everything, but the past three days have blended themselves into one large buffet mess.

Jennifer had a few (317 actually...) salads, so we had a plate up. This are always a lot of fun, I love seeing a finished plate come together through the help of many hands. I had the task of grating, by hand, 6 kilos of applewood smoked cheese, and quartering 325 strawberries.

I love applewood cheese, I find it has such a nice flavour, we would be sprinkling this on top of the finished salad. The salad would be topped with 4 strawberries, 3 blackberries and 5 blueberries. All counted, so each plate looked the same. We did 5 plates without cheese, due to allergies.

I also made bruchetta, which turned out fantastic! I was very pleased, since it was my first time making it. I let the roma tomatoes sit in the oil and seasonings over night, and then scooped a bit onto toast points with some hard cheese placed underneath. The cheese was used as a moisture blocker, between the tomatoes and the bread, this ensures the guest is receiving a crunchy snack, even if it's been sitting their all through a meeting. I will have to ask what sort of cheese it was, as I forget, it was similar to Parmesan.

For Mothers' day, we had a lot of work cut out for us. I did not take pictures of everything, as many things I have already made, and therefor already have photos of. We did up trays of smoked salmon, scallops, haddock, cantaloupe, watermelon, grilled red pepper, grilled mushrooms, capers, muscles, and a salad bar complete with bacon and croutons.

I had the task of cooking off the shrimp. This was a lovely time to find out that I am allergic to raw shrimp juice, or the oils on the shells. When I went to load the hotel pans into the steamer, shrimp water ran down my arms, and into my jacket, my hands turned red and my arms got all bumpy. I could feel my stomach start to itch. Donald, the saucier, taught me that rubbing alcohol takes away the itch. Though my hands and arms still look a mess from the reaction.

While helping set up for the buffet, Chef Chris asked if I wanted to take some photos, but guests were already trickling in, so I snapped a few quick ones, but missed pictures of the lovely folks over at the carving stations, the waffle and omelette stations. Here you can see most of our work, as well as the wonderful goodies pastry did up.

They put a lot of work into those treats, and it smelt fantastic.

Last but not least, those lovely little tedious tea sandwiches, each one is about 3 fingers wide and long. Also known as 3 fingers squared. I only remembered to take a photo of the last two, but they were smoked salmon with caper creme frisch on a baguette, cucumber with dill cream cheese on whole wheat and tomatoes and bocconcini with olive pesto on foccacia bread.

I learned how to make olive pesto, and I am in love with it. I am going to try and find several uses for it, so I have an excuse to make it and eat it at home.